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Keith Henson

The
Church of Scientology and its followers want you to believe
that Keith Henson stated he would "have them bombed and the
buildings exploded": This is utter
fabrication, Keith Henson never expressed such threat. He merely
corrected someone who answered to a post in which
someone else was
joking about a "Tom Cruise Missile."

Keith Henson was picketing and trying to bring awareness
to what he calls "depraved indifference" in the death of two
young women in and around the Scientology compound. He was
trying to bring awareness because
he cared. This is directly
from the doctrine of the Church of Scientology: "[People
critical of Scientology] may be
tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed," from
L. Ron Hubbard, the
founder of Scientology. This is the precise doctrine they
followed to try and silence Keith Henson.

[...] As a condition of his probation, he is
forbidden to do anything that bothers a
Scientologist.

"If I say anything that annoys a Scientologist I
go back to jail."

In fact, his three-year probation, available
through the Riverside, Calif., court web pages,
orders him to avoid any negative contact with any
Scientologist, not to come within 1,000 feet of a
Scientologist and not to annoy or harass any member
of the group.

Henson is living quietly in his Arizona home. If
he goes outside, it's behind a six-foot fence.

"I still fear for my life. My problem is that I
haven't been paranoid enough in the past." [...]

[...]
"It's amazing the trouble you get into for trying to
warn the public about health hazards," Henson told
the Mercury News after the verdict. "This was just a
loss of a battle in a larger war."

Indeed it was. The fine forced Henson into
bankruptcy, but he wasn't ready to let go. Henson
(who, after more than a decade living in Silicon
Valley, moved to Southern California) picketed
Scientology organizations around Los Angeles.
According to his wife, he was roughed up more than
once and was a frequent target of death threats.

The Church of Scientology did not return calls
requesting comment. [...]

Keith's crime, trying to draw
attention to the fact that two young women died
there in as many months, joking about a 'Tom Cruise
missile', and picketing on public property. I was
there. I saw operatives hired by the cult try to
shove him out into highway 79. I was on his witness
list, and underwent Scientology harassment until I
complained to ADA Schwarz. This whole thing is
garbage, a prime example of the kind of corrupting
influence this cult has on communities where it has
a considerable presence.

A Silicon Valley figure who fled the country after
being convicted in part because of a Usenet joke about
Tom Cruise and Scientology has been arrested in Arizona.

Keith Henson, an engineer, writer and futurist, was
arrested Friday in Prescott, Ariz., where he has been
living for the past few years, and now faces extradition
to California. Henson originally fled to Canada after
the 2001 conviction.

The misdemeanor
conviction in California stems from a post that
Henson made in the alt.religion.scientology Usenet newsgroup
that joked about aiming a nuclear "Tom Cruise" missile
at Scientologists, and Henson's picketing of the group's
Golden Era Productions in Riverside, Calif.

Michael Kielsky, Henson's defense attorney, said
Monday that his client will likely be released on Monday
evening and is required to appear in court for a March
5 hearing. [...]

This CNet article is great, although it contains
a few factual errors/omissions which I want to clarify:

Keith Henson's conviction was for 'interfering
with a religion,' a misdemeanor: he was
picketing an
heavily armed Scientology compound following
the death of Ashlee Shaner and Stacy Moxon.

Keith Henson didn't post the story of
Xenu in the copyright case that he lost
to the Church of Scientology, but mainly
NOTS
34, titled The Sequence for Handling
a Physical Condition, which calls for using
Scientology
auditing to
treat medical
problems. Note that NOTS 34 is only a small
part of the whole
NOTS, and
as such, many are of the opinion that Keith
Henson's posting is protected by the 'fair use'
provision of copyright regulations.

In short:

Keith Henson pointed out that the Church
of Scientology seems to mislead its adherents
by telling them they can
cure illnesses
through auditing: a judge slapped Keith Henson
with copyright violations.

Keith Henson pickets Scientology compound
to raise public awareness following the death of two women on and around
the compound: a judge slapped Keith Henson with
a conviction of 'interfering with a religion,'
a misdemeanor.

When democratic values are trampled on, we can't
claim that we live in a democratic society.

At trial,
the judge threw out all Henson's witnesses, disallowed
any testimony about his reasons for picketing the cult,
and allowed the prosecution to present excerpts from
Henson's Internet postings out of context; the Scientology
witnesses also committed perjury which Henson
was unable to rebut.

Awaiting extradition to California from the
Prescott, Arizona jail, Keith Henson is being denied
visitation rights, contact with his lawyer, and
medication he needs to control heart and blood
pressure problems.

Last Friday, Scientology critic, engineer and writer
Keith Henson
was arrested in Prescott Arizona, after fleeing California
following a one year sentence for picketing Scientology's
secret armed compound north of Hemet, California.

The sentence wasn't just, it wasn't fair, and the court
wasn't honest.

Now, it appears he will be extradited back to corrupt
Riverside County, where a jail sentence might well be
a death sentence for him, if threats made to him by
Scientologists are genuine. [...]

On Friday, Arizona police arrested a 64-year-old
man — a fugitive since 2001 in a bizarre war
that mixes free speech, copyright law, and the Church
of Scientology.

Keith Henson’s journey began
seven years ago while innocuously watching another
critic mock the group on an internet newsgroup. In a
gonzo discussion about procuring a “Tom Cruise missile,”
they’d joked about working with “Secret Agent 99, wearing
a stunning black leather biker outfit.” Other posters
joined in the internet discussion, asking whether Tom
Cruise missiles are affected by wind.”No way,” Keith
joked. “Modern weapons are accurate to a matter
of a few tens of yards.”

The police were informed of his “threatening” posts,
and Henson was
arrested. [...]

The sinister Scientology® business claimed it attacked
Keith Henson because of "copyright violations." In reality,
the reason is because Mr. Henson spoke the truth about
Scientology Inc.'s crimes and human rights abuses. The
business attacked Henson as a "warning" to others who
would be so bold as to tell the truth about Scientology.
This is called the "Monkey on a Stick" deterrent: one
or two "monkeys" are selected from the crowd of critics,
and harassed in front of them--- this is to cause the
other critics to cease objecting to Scientology Inc.'s
crimes and gross human rights abuses.

Having read the New Era Dianetics for Operating Thetans
(NOTs) levels, Keith Henson believes that Scientology
is practicing medicine without a license. He was sued
for posting the relevant sections - NOTS 34 - that describe
these practices.

A
letter Keith Henson sent to Judge Whyte on March 26,
in the
Grady Ward case. Four days later, after Judge Whyte's
clerk assured Keith that he was not subject to Grady
Ward's temporary restraining order, Keith also posted
a copy of this letter to alt.religion.scientology and
several other newsgroups. The original version of Keith's
letter (which I've expurgated) contained a complete
copy of a CoS document known as "NOTS 34" or "HCO BULLETIN
OF 14 NOVEMBER 1978". Henson claims
that "NOTS
34" is evidence that CoS is violating US laws against
practicing medicine without a license, and thus the
public interest demands that the document be disclosed.

What bothers me is that people in US government law
enforcement had detailed knowledge in 1995 about scientology's
attempt to frame
Tom Klemesrud
for murder just like scientology had successfully framed
Paulette Cooper
for
bomb threats back in the 70s. I get a shrug when
I express amazement at this. Maybe it is not a Federal
crime.

Scientology did get Tom falsely arrested
and later manipulated (or outright corrupted) a small
claims court to provide Ms Blood with a cover justification
and manipulated a Federal court (Judge Whyte's) so scientology's
operation against Tom was not exposed.

Keith came to picket to bring attention to the tragic
death of the young woman, Ashley Shaner. She was killed
instantly when her car came in contact with a dimly
lit tractor trailer being driven across Gilman Springs
Road. The accident date was May l7, 2000. Keith came
to my home later in the month and I asked him to stay
at my place while he continued to picket. Several other
critics of the cult's abusive practices came through
the summer to exercise their constitutional rights.

Henson had been picketing the church's heavily armed
and guarded base near Hemet. The church had Henson arrested
and jailed. It claimed that his solitary picketing was
terrorizing the church and interfering with the practice
of a religion. The local California police refused to
prosecute but Scientology sent lawyers from New York
and Washington to "persuade" the District Attorney to
ignore the police and to prosecute Henson. The District
Attorney was running for re-election and agreed to prosecute
Henson with the assistance of Scientology lawyers from
New York and Los Angeles. The trial judge was manipulated
and misled, Henson was denied an effective defense;
he was convicted and sentenced to year in prison. Henson
then learned that Scientology agents were spreading
rumors in prison that Henson was coming to prison and
that he was a child molester. Child molesters are despicable
people and they are often assaulted and even killed
in prison in the United States. To avoid being imprisoned
under these circumstances, Henson fled to Canada. Henson
is a smallish 60-year-old grandfather who has no other
convictions and no record of violence. Scientology told
the Toronto police that Henson was an armed and dangerous
terrorist. The Toronto SWAT team, all prepared for a
machine gun shoot out, took Henson and his Canadian
host down with an awesome display of firepower. Henson
spent a week in a Toronto jail. He was denied his blood
pressure medication. Eventually, Henson was released
on bail and he applied for political asylum in Canada.
Predictably, Scientology is now providing the language
for the Canadian immigration minister's decisions and
Henson now looks to Europe for human rights and protection
from Scientology's corruption of the North American
courts and governments.

Keith Henson, the anti-Scientology engineer who fled
Brantford in 2005 after losing a fight to avoid deportation,
was arrested in Arizona last week.

Henson was ordered to be deported two years ago through
a transfer at the Canada-U.S. border. But, afraid of
being tracked by Scientologists who he said have been
harassing him for years, he opted to leave Brantford
early. Henson was convicted in California of interfering
with a religion and Scientologists were keen to see
him returned there for punishment. [...]

He's accused of being a convicted hate criminal, a
child molester, an Internet terrorist, a
self-proclaimed bomb expert and a fugitive from
justice.

Well, that last part is true, says Keith
Henson, a mild-mannered 63 year-old with a
boisterous laugh and thinning hair.

The fugitive living in Brantford doesn't exactly
fit the part written for him on the Internet by the
Church of Scientology as a hate filled terrorist
bomber, but he is somewhat peeved that his quiet
life in Brantford has been disturbed. [...]

When the May 29 takedown was over, Henson, a Palo Alto
computer consultant, was in custody at the "super-maximum-security"
Metro West Detention Centre on a Canadian immigration
warrant. The warrant was based on Henson's April 26
criminal conviction in Hemet, California. And what was
the Internet activist's crime? Espionage, perhaps? Terrorism?
Henson was found guilty of a single misdemeanor count
of interfering with a religion. To those familiar with
a ferocious five-year war between the church and its
Internet critics, it comes as no surprise that the religion
was Scientology.

"Keith Henson, American activist on the run in
Canada, thinks the controversial Church of
Scientology has made him fair game for dirty tricks
Looking back, maybe the joke about the "Tom Cruise
Missile" wasn't such a good idea.

That online
jest, made last year by Keith Henson, a peaceful if
persistent critic of the controversial Church of
Scientology, has led to his being found guilty of
"intimidating a religion," and now on the run from
the U.S., hiding out in plain sight in Oakville, a
Toronto suburb, where he plans on claiming
political-refugee status.

His case has shone a light on Scientology, a
vaguely well-known organization founded by a
middling science-fiction writer that maintains
humans are tainted with the spirits of space aliens
and that critics claim is simply a global scam to
separate the needy from their money.

Like Waco and Jonestown, this case raises issues
of how far freedom of religion goes and just how far
a so-called religion can go to protect itself and
its members from its dissidents.

"It's not that I care one way or the other about
their beliefs," said Henson this week just after
news of his flight hit the net. "If they want to
believe in space cooties, galactic overlords or
virgin birth, that's their problem. The problem is
when they viciously violate my right to free
speech." Keith Henson arrived at the place he calls
Gold Base almost by accident."

"A dodgy District Attorney, with cult lawyers sitting
at the prosecutor's table, set him up for absurd charges
of threatening the cult with cruise missiles," says
Dave Bird, another Scientology critic. "Virtually all
the defense evidence was excluded.... Even when Henson
quoted L. Ron Hubbard's violent words, it was presented
as his own speech without quotation marks."

[...]
On April 26, 2001, Henson was convicted of threatening
to interfere with the CoS members' freedom to enjoy
their constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.
Although official trial documents are not yet available,
the verdict seems based on Henson's activities while
picketing the CoS desert compound and postings on the
Internet alt.religion.scientology newsgroup. It appears
that the postings admitted into evidence included only
fragments of longer postings or threads taken out of
context. For example, the defense
was apparently prohibited from showing that a comment
about "cruise missiles" was made in response to a joke
about actor Tom Cruise. The trial judge also
allegedly forbid Henson from explaining why he was protesting
Scientology. [...]

Judge Whyte, in short, has turned copyright law on its
head. The purpose of the law is to encourage free speech,
giving authors and artists comfort in knowing that others
cannot misappropriate their works for their own profit.
The essence of the matter before him, as anyone not
blinded by a Pecksniffian literalness can see, is that
the plaintiffs are using the law to muzzle their critics.
In addition, the judge is in the process of morphing
an already dubious tort case into a criminal matter
through the contempt power--a threat to freedom of speech
well recognized in the First Amendment community.

A judge ruled Friday that a frequent protester of the
Church of Scientology cannot be blocked from going near
its Golden Era film studios in Gilman Hot Springs or
its studio manager.

Golden Era Manager Ken Hoden received
a temporary restraining order against Keith Henson last
month after Henson picketed outside the church's complex
along Highway 79. Hoden argued Henson harassed and threatened
him with a pool cue attached to a sign.

Judge Stephen D. Cunnison of Riverside Superior Court
on Friday refused Hoden's request to make the restraining
order permanent. Henson, who has picketed Scientology
sites across the country, was exercising his rights
to free speech and did not single out Hoden, he said.
[...]

Neither of the two men gave Scientology much thought
until they heard a report about the church censoring
a chat group on the Internet two years ago. "They came
and pissed in my sandbox," Henson snarls. Now, annoying
Scientologists has become their favorite pastime.